May 27, 2006

My Personal Canon

The last couple of days in my downtime I have been rejiggering and altogether recompiling my Favourite of All-Time list (it doesn't just stop at 100 y'all). Emphasis on FAVOURITE. There were plenty of new entries and and some unfortunate casualties.

I love all these films and I feel saddened that I'd have to lump them all into a Top 100 countdown. Maybe a Top 200? lol. Who knows. I might do that soon. One thing I did do with this list was forget all concern about whether the titles I chose were "acceptable" in film lovers terms. I sorta don't care anymore if I have something like Scream 2 in the Top 25. Or if Showgirls makes a ceremonious entry.

The movies that, in my brain, have gained the most (and thus, got a much higher placing on this edition of the list) were:
Cat People, 1942, dir. Tourneur
The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942, dir. Welles
Cabaret, 1972, dir. Fosse
My Beautiful Laundrette, 1985, dir. Frears
Husbands & Wives, 1992, dir. Allen
Sleepless in Seattle, 1993, dir. Ephron
The Cell, 2000, dir. Singh
Birth, 2004, dir. Glazer
The Incredibles, 2004, dir. Bird

(note - none of them are necessarily in my Top 100)

Unfortunately, movies that despite my intense love, got pushed further down the chart that I would have anticipated (mostly due to tonnes of new entries more than anything) were:
Gilda, 1946, dir. Vidor
JFK, 1991, dir. Stone
To Die For, 1995, dir. Van Sant
Contact, 1997, dir. Zemeckis
Donnie Darko, 2001, dir. Kelly
City of God, 2003, dir. Meirelles

(note - this doesn't mean they're NOT in the Top 100. Just that they took a hit)

Hmmm. It's fun but also torturous trying to sort out a list that I am happy with. There are certain titles I feel deserve to be in the 100 but then I put them in and it bumps out another title I think should be there. It's a vicious cycle, really.

3 comments:

RC said...

That's very sad that City of God took any sort of hit...are you sure you don't need to watch it again???

And I think Sleepless in Seattle deserves a lot of props...it's a great film and often under appreciated since so many films after it copies it's style.

Remember, Sleepless even got an academy award nomination for best screenplay.

--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com

adam k. said...

Merry Meryl Streep Day, Glenn!

Check out the blog. I've been posting like crazy.

Glenn Dunks said...

rc, I still love City of God, and still count is as the third best film of 2003. It's just that that particular film happened to take a hit in the front of all the newcomers.